As Prime Minister Modi visits China, it is necessary to remember a few hard facts: INDIA VERSUS CHINA: OR CHANAKYA VERSUS GANDHI

It betrayed Nehru’s naive trust in a Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai friendship and treacherously attacked India from Tibet which Nehru had implicitly left to the Chinese, humiliating the Indian army which would take decades to recover. It directly or indirectly encouraged separatist movements in the northeast; it used Nepal as a front state against India; it armed, and worst of all, gave the nuclear bomb to Pakistan, a crime against humanity. Today it is still sitting on a million square meters in Aksai Chin (supposedly given to Pakistan), which rightfully belong to India; it claims Arunachal Pradesh, and sometimes Sikhim, does regular incursions into Indian territory and is still busy encircling India in Burma. Chinese despise Indians, witness how they summoned the Indian ambassador at 2 am in the morning as if she was some lower hireling.

Indian leaders, including Mr Narendra Modi, are also perfectly aware that the Chinese, in a span of fifty years, have killed 1,2 million Tibetans, razed to the ground 6254 monasteries, destroyed 60% of religious, historical and cultural archives and that one Tibetan out of ten is still in jail. As we have entered the Third Millennium, a quarter million Chinese troops are occupying Tibet and there are 7,5 million Chinese settlers for six million Tibetans – in fact, in many places such as the capital, Lhassa, Tibetans are outnumbered two to one… India has also to wake-up to the plain fact that China needs space and has hegemonic aspirations : it got Tibet, it got Hong Kong, it got part of Ladhak; now it wants Taiwan, Arunachal Pradesh, the Spratly islands and what not ! Seventy years ago, during the Korean war, Sri Aurobindo, had seen clearly in the Chinese game : “the first move in the Chinese Communist plan of campaign is to dominate and take possession first of these northern parts and then of South East Asia as a preliminary to their manoeuvres with regard to the rest of the continent in passing Tibet as a gate opening to India”.

And magically, for once, India has a chance to get back at China without appearing to do so. China claims Arunachal Pradesh and gives staples visas to Kashmiris and Arunachalis. It would be easy for India to prop-up the Dalai lama, a wonderful man if there is one, and let the Tibetans freely claim their country back, which has never been in Chinese possession except for such short spells. This would embarrass the Chinese enormously and give India some leverage in their territorial negotiations with the Beijing.

Tibet is so important for India: it has always acted as a peaceful, non-violent buffer zone between the two giants of Asia: China and Tibet. And the Dalai-lama wants it even pore peaceful: a demilitarized, denuclearized harmony region. But it’s exactly the opposite which has happened: according to the CIA, China has transferred one third of its nuclear arsenal to Nagchuka, 250 kms away from Lhassa, a region full of huge caves, which the Chinese have linked together by an intricate underground network and where they have installed nearly one hundred Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, many of them pointed at Indian cities. The reason for this is that the Chinese, who are probably among the most intelligent people in the world, have always understood that India is their number one potential enemy in Asia – in military, nuclear and economic terms.

Today India is encircled by hostile neighbours, from Pakistan to Bangladesh, from Chinese-occupied Tibet, to a Maoist Nepal (encouraged and fostered by Indian communists and the Congress who betrayed the interests of the nation). It has also to deal with a valley of Kashmir whose only true allegiance is Islam, and separatism from some north-eastern states who have been nearly fully converted to Christianity.

Never has India faced a darker hour whatever gurus say. Never has she faced so many enemies at the same time – and truly China is one of the most dangerous ones. Yet India always bends backwards to please the Chinese. Only Mr Modi, since he has come to power, has worked to loosen the iron grip that the Chinese have thrown around India, with his trips to Japan, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Nepal et cetera. But will, he like Mr Vajpayee, fall in the trap of the Hindu-Buddhist misconception of Ahimsa at all costs, which the Chinese eagerly seize upon to deceive India.

Why is that so? Because the Indian intelligentsia, the « secular » politicians, the journalists, the top bureaucrats, are the descendants of these « Brown Shahibs », which Macaulay created more than 250 years ago. The man who thought that « all the historical information which can be collected from all the books which have been written in the Sanskrit language, is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgement used at preparatory schools in England », wished to make of Indians a darker version of the British. He has been immensely successful and has created a nation with a colonized mind. Many of India’s politicians, bureaucrats and journalists are always aping whatever the West does, or are always worrying about what the West thinks of them. They never think Indian, they have no idea about India’s great culture, philosophy and spirituality. Very few have read the Bhagavad Gita, or understood that it encourages yoga in action and that sometimes it is important to defend one’s country, culture and borders, by force if necessary. They are no match for Chinese, who are proud of themselves and their nation and will use any means, open and covert, legal and foul, to foster their dream of a Greater China. Beware then Mr Modi, your enemy may be a match for your own political acumen and opportunism. You need to borrow now from Chanakya, or Krishna of the Bhagavad Gita, not Buddha or Gandhi